Features
  • 5 standard oscillators
  • dual oscillator model including "morphing"
  • realtime resonant filters
  • great user interface & skin support
  • frequency and volume envelopes
  • 256 notes step sequencer
  • digital fx: hall, reverb, distortion
  • 16bit 44.1 khz CD quality
  • midi support
  • .wav rendering option.wav rendering option
  • groove section for drumloops
Hardware recommendation
in order to run RubberDuck, you will need at least a pentium with 100mhz running under windows95/98 or windows nt 4.0 with a soundcard supported by the system.
your graphics should support 16bit colors (65000). RubberDuck will only take about 3MB of your precious hard disk space.
Installation
Execute the Setup Program and install Rubberduck on your computer.
De-installation
if you might ever want to deinstall Rubberduck (although we can't figure out why you would :)), use the provided uninstall.exe.
everything will be taken care of then...
Sounddevice setup

before you can use RubberDuck the first time, you have to check the sound device setup in setup/sounddevice setup.

output device

determines the audio driver that RubberDuck uses for sound generation.
  • windows wave mapper
  • the wave mapper device that windows uses to map audio devices. use this option if you often change your soundcard driver in windows.
  • windows MME soundcard driver
  • the normal soundcard driver that came with your soundcard.
  • directx sound interface
  • the directx soundcard driver. due to performance reasons you should use this driver if possible. you can get directx drivers for your soundcard from the vendor or microsoft. please make sure that directx is installed on your system before selecting this option.
  • d-lusion audio server
  • the d-lusion audio server is a tool to synchronize several d-lusion products running at the same time (for example a set of two RubberDucks and one DrumStation).
    please check our website at www.d-lusion.com/das/ for further information

frequency

mixing frequency for the RubberDuck sound-generation. you will use 44.1kHz to achieve CD quality, unless your soundcard doesn't support it or you want to torture yourself.

resolution

the resolution of the generated audio data. usually 16bit.

buffersize

the buffer size determines the size of the output buffer. if you use a smaller buffer, the time between the movement of a fader and the actual reaction of the sound generation gets shorter. unfortunately this highly depends on the soundcard driver you are using. if the buffersize gets too small, you will hear a stuttering noise in the sound output. it is best to reduce the buffersize to the smallest possible size without getting a stuttering sound.
Potential interesting 3rd party stuff.
Midi-setup

realtime control

this setups enables you to remote control any slider or fader in RubberDuck via midi or joystick. you can choose between the following controllers:
  • joystick 1,2 : x,y,z-axes
  • midi pitch bender
  • midi control changes (0-127)
as a target for the modulation you have:
  • cutoff freq: cutoff-frequency of the lowpass filter
  • attack: attack rate of the volume envelope
  • decay: decay rate of the volume envelope
  • modulation: modulation strength of the filter
  • resonance: resonance factor of the filter
  • osc1/osc2: modulation between the two oscillators
  • volume: volume of the whole synthesizer
  • tempo: temp
  • accent: accent of the single notes
  • tuning: tuning of the soundgeneration
if you enable the button "modulate" behind the specific modulation target, the values will be interpreted as relative, not absolute values.

setup

midi input
choose the midi input driver to control RubberDuck via a midi keyboard, external sequencer and other midi gear.
midi input channel
defines the midi channel on which RubberDuck receives data. if it is set to "omni", data will be received on all availible channels.

options

program changes
controls wether or not RubberDuck will react to midi program changes. a program change will be interpreted as the number of the next pattern to support pattern changes via a sequencer.
midi clock sync
RubberDuck can be used as midi slave with other midi gear like drum machines, sequencers etc. the quality of the synchronization highly depends on the buffersize.
if you want to use RubberDuck together with other d-lusion software such as DrumStation, we suggest to use DAS for synchronizing.

for more information about using rubberduck with midi gear, see the midi implementation chapter.